Conor Friedersdorf ****ing nails it. If you bathe in the muck of the vast majority of conservative media -- if you read FoxNews.com more than any other site, if you hail Mark Levin as brilliant, if you live and die by Drudge...

Then you are being lied to.

There are plenty of conservative sources that simply have a conservative view on the world -- the Wall Street Journal, for instance. But that's distinct from the profitable media empire that sells propaganda damn near 24/7.

Example #1, since it comes up so much in this forum: the Drudge Report.

How many times did the Drudge Report link to Nate Silver, who absolutely crushed his election predictions? Zero.
How many times did the Drudge Report link to Dick Morris? A dozen.

And yet you bought it. You might recall sitting there watching the election returns, certain that Romney would win because for months you've been inundated with Republican whores like Morris telling you what you wanted to hear -- "Obama's a paper tiger," "his campaign is getting desperate," "absolutely nobody I know is voting Obama," "I see more Romney yard signs," "look at this outlier poll that favors Romney"...

Then the results come in, largely how the vast majority of polls told us they would.

You were misinformed. Massively. And it's not just limited to election returns. On climate change, tax rates, income inequality, immigration, healthcare, energy, foreign policy (in particular the Middle East), gay rights for the longest time, and of course Obama himself... You are being sold a bullshit platter that leaves you just as misinformed as you were about the prospective election results.

The biggest offender, of course, is Fox News. Not that they're the most egregious violators of conservative propaganda, but they're by far the most pervasive and the most influential.

You trust Fox News because you believe they are simply reporting from a conservative point of view. That's not true. They are actively selling bullshit. This election and Rove's meltdown on the evening of the 6th is proof. This is an organization that is financially and professionally tied to the Republican Party. Fox News' overlords donate heavily to the GOP. Many Republican candidates for the Presidency either end up or originate as Fox News contributors. This is not an independent outlet in any shape or form, it is a direct arm of the Republican Party.

Get out of this bubble. Set Google News as your homepage. And embrace the next four years as an opportunity to find out what you actually believe, rather than simply adopting the narrative of charlatans.

How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File
Nate Silver was right. His ideological antagonists were wrong. And that's just the beginning of the right's self-created information disadvantage.
By Conor Friedersdorf
Nov 7 2012, 6:30 AM ET

Before rank-and-file conservatives ask, "What went wrong?", they should ask themselves a question every bit as important: "Why were we the last to realize that things were going wrong for us?"

Barack Obama just trounced a Republican opponent for the second time. But unlike four years ago, when most conservatives saw it coming, Tuesday's result was, for them, an unpleasant surprise. So many on the right had predicted a Mitt Romney victory, or even a blowout -- Dick Morris, George Will, and Michael Barone all predicted the GOP would break 300 electoral votes. Joe Scarborough scoffed at the notion that the election was anything other than a toss-up. Peggy Noonan insisted that those predicting an Obama victory were ignoring the world around them. Even Karl Rove, supposed political genius, missed the bulls-eye. These voices drove the coverage on Fox News, talk radio, the Drudge Report, and conservative blogs.

Those audiences were misinformed.

Outside the conservative media, the narrative was completely different. Its driving force was Nate Silver, whose performance forecasting Election '08 gave him credibility as he daily explained why his model showed that President Obama enjoyed a very good chance of being reelected. Other experts echoed his findings. Readers of The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other "mainstream media" sites besides knew the expert predictions, which have been largely born out. The conclusions of experts are not sacrosanct. But Silver's expertise was always a better bet than relying on ideological hacks like Morris or the anecdotal impressions of Noonan.

Sure, Silver could've wound up wrong. But people who rejected the possibility of his being right? They were operating at a self-imposed information disadvantage.

Conservatives should be familiar with its contours. For years, they've been arguing that liberal control of media and academia confers one advantage: Folks on the right can't help but be familiar with the thinking of liberals, whereas leftists can operate entirely within a liberal cocoon. This analysis was offered to explain why liberal ideas were growing weaker and would be defeated.

Today?

It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you're a rank-and-file conservative, you're probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn't accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thinking; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear.

But guess what?

You haven't just been misinformed about the horse race. Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven't tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they've done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election.

Why do you keep putting up with it?

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election.

Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a "Grand Jihad" against America. Seriously?

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because their information elites pandered in the most cynical, self-defeating ways, treating would-be candidates like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain as if they were plausible presidents rather than national jokes who'd lose worse than George McGovern.

How many months were wasted on them?

How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don't Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn't grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man's record nor repudiate it. The most damaging Romney gaffe of the campaign, where he talked about how the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes are a lost cause for Republicans? Either he was unaware that many of those people are Republican voters, or was pandering to GOP donors who are misinformed. Either way, bad information within the conservative movement was to blame.

In conservative fantasy-land, Richard Nixon was a champion of ideological conservatism, tax cuts are the only way to raise revenue, adding neoconservatives to a foreign-policy team reassures American voters, Benghazi was a winning campaign issue, Clint Eastwood's convention speech was a brilliant triumph, and Obama's America is a place where black kids can beat up white kids with impunity. Most conservative pundits know better than this nonsense -- not that they speak up against it. They see criticizing their own side as a sign of disloyalty. I see a coalition that has lost all perspective, partly because there's no cost to broadcasting or publishing inane bullshit. In fact, it's often very profitable. A lot of cynical people have gotten rich broadcasting and publishing red meat for movement conservative consumption.

On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.

It ought to be an eye-opening moment.

But I expect that it'll be quickly forgotten, that none of the conservatives who touted a polling conspiracy will be discredited, and that the right will continue to operate at an information disadvantage. After all, it's not like they'll trust the analysis of a non-conservative like me more than the numerous fellow conservatives who constantly tell them things that turn out not to be true.

Bill Maher is the spokesmen for all that is Democratic. There is no one on the Republican side in media with the marshaling power of Bill Maher.

Oh yes there is.

Rush Limbaugh swings the same stick that Maher does. Hell, you can make a good argument that Jon Stewart swings a bigger stick than Maher does.

That's the thing - people are people. Just because they have a different political viewpoint doesn't mean that basic human nature fizzles out.

Some people are assholes. Some people are aggressive. Some people are haughty and opinionated and unable to make a point without condescending towards whomever they're making that point to. Some people are extremely good at gathering support among peers and followers alike. Some people are terminally ambitious and extremely charismatic so they rise to a position that allows them to capitalize on or heighten all of the aforementioned traits.

And neither side has a monopoly on any of those people.

Yes, for every single talking head on one side of the political spectrum, there is a doppelganger on the other side. That's just the way humans work.

You do realize that, at least based off your responses in this thread, you're not the target audience of the OP?

Never really thought I was.

I'm not so much defending myself (I rarely feel the need to do so, it's a fundamental tenant of my arrogance, really), I'm simply trying to unpack the thought a little bit. I believe my first post in this thread was more with the idea that there was a fallacy in the implication (that the Republicans lost because of their own media, indicating that their own media has had a massive impact on their approach). I don't think that's accurate.

Like I said, it seems to me that the OP was left in the dust some time ago.

If you believe more Democrats will vote than Republicans, you include more of them in your sample. You have therefore oversampled Democrats. Oversampling is nothing more than a relative term; how much of one you have over the other taking a 50/50 baseline.

What the pollsters did was not a slant, it was a projection.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Pollsters don't choose the number of Democrats or Republicans to include in their sample. That is a fluid, outcome variable just like which candidate people support.

__________________
Homer: [looking at watch] Two hours? Why'd they build this ghost town so far away?
Lisa: Because they discovered gold over there!
Homer: It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything.

Says the guy that assures us all that Bill Maher's just a harmless little jokester and Ann Coulter is a soulless demon.

I don't know you from adam, but I can absolutely speak to your credibility on this issue as one doesn't need to get much beyond your own words to address it. In fact, you've spoken to it yourself with your very first sentence.

I dare call one of your spades a spade, and suddenly I'm a 'very bitter human being'. You had it all along - the right has a monopoly on personal attacks.

But hey, I'm sure you were just telling jokes that went over our heads, right Billy boy?

Good ol' liberals - don't ever change.

Um...I don't recall giving an opinion on Bill Maher. Where did you see that? I simply stated that I didn't take his comment/joke as calling Rove a Nazi. Is that a crime?

I'm "reasonably sure" that you are making an assumption here. The only opinion I've offered in this thread regarding political commentators is one of Rachael Maddow. So you can take your personal attacks based on assumptions about my posts and tuck them away until I give you reason to whip them out. That is, unless you want to come across as bitter...

Sucks doesn't it. Felt the same way after Bush in 2004. And in 2000 when the majority agreed with me but we still lost.

But, you can still come around and straighten us fools out from time to time.

This really is 2004 to a T, just with roles reversed.

I remember walking through the halls at Hulston with people absolutely beside themselves over the L. "People are just too stupid to get what we are saying". "How do people not see this guy for what he is?", "I hope we even have a country left to rebuild in 4 years" blah blah blah. The narratives were exactly the same.

That's precisely my point - people are still people. The fact that they have different ideas doesn't fundamentally alter their nature or their character. I know we are in a fairly poisonous political climate that tries to suggest otherwise, but it's really funny to look at this and compare it to 2004.

This is probably the most salient point. In order for Republicans to become electable they have to become a party willing to argue over how much government and government aid to give the demographics versus the democrats. Regardless, it's basically a pandering to taking more from the producers to the takers.

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Anything you post on this BB can and will be used against you...

This isn't a state and church issue. Whether your "God" is Jesus or Mother Nature doesn't matter, but the founding fathers didn't believe that they, as representatives of the people, were bestowing rights. They believed that rights were inherent in our being. For a religious person, that means bestowed by God.

Sure, I have no problem with that. I'm saying that according to our legal system it doesn't matter where you believe those right originated, that those rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, and exist regardless of God or your believe/disbelief in him. That's the way that the Constitution is worded.

Um...I don't recall giving an opinion on Bill Maher. Where did you see that? I simply stated that I didn't take his comment/joke as calling Rove a Nazi. Is that a crime?

I'm "reasonably sure" that you are making an assumption here. The only opinion I've offered in this thread regarding political commentators is one of Rachael Maddow. So you can take your personal attacks based on assumptions about my posts and tuck them away until I give you reason to whip them out. That is, unless you want to come across as bitter...

You lack credibility in this discussion if you can't recognize Bill Maher for what he is.

That's why you qualify statements when you have incomplete information. As I've noted - I don't know you from Adam. If you think Bill Maher's just a harmless jokester, than I'm comfortable saying you have no credibility in the discussion - the man's work is available for all to see. If you don't believe that, well then I guess it's a good thing I qualified it, eh?

We use our words for a reason. One should consider reading them as such.

Pollsters don't choose the number of Democrats or Republicans to include in their sample. That is a fluid, outcome variable just like which candidate people support.

Some do, some don't.

Pollsters can, and often do (especially when trying to make projections based on their believed electorate), filter through results and/or drop randomly selected samples if they don't fit the projection model.

The guys that are trying to really predict will absolutely tailor their sample to fit a projected voter pattern, otherwise it's just random chance.

I remember walking through the halls at Hulston with people absolutely beside themselves over the L. "People are just too stupid to get what we are saying". "How do people not see this guy for what he is?", "I hope we even have a country left to rebuild in 4 years" blah blah blah. The narratives were exactly the same.

That's precisely my point - people are still people. The fact that they have different ideas doesn't fundamentally alter their nature or their character. I know we are in a fairly poisonous political climate that tries to suggest otherwise, but it's really funny to look at this and compare it to 2004.

Pollsters can, and often do (especially when trying to make projections based on their believed electorate), filter through results and/or drop randomly selected samples if they don't fit the projection model.

The guys that are trying to really predict will absolutely tailor their sample to fit a projected voter pattern, otherwise it's just random chance.

As far as I know, only one group does this, and they finished almost last in this election. Choosing the numbers for each party is just choosing the outcome you want to see, which defeats the whole purpose of taking a sample.

You say not doing this leaves you with "just random chance", but the whole purpose of taking a large sample is to reduce the randomness to a small and quantifiable amount. When you aggregate this across many samples, that randomness goes away almost completely, hence the derision poll deniers got and also the reason they were so wrong.

__________________
Homer: [looking at watch] Two hours? Why'd they build this ghost town so far away?
Lisa: Because they discovered gold over there!
Homer: It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything.

That's why you qualify statements when you have incomplete information. As I've noted - I don't know you from Adam. If you think Bill Maher's just a harmless jokester, than I'm comfortable saying you have no credibility in the discussion - the man's work is available for all to see. If you don't believe that, well then I guess it's a good thing I qualified it, eh?

We use our words for a reason. One should consider reading them as such.

Typical rightie, unable to discern between two different things. I was commenting on the joke. Not Bill Maher.

See, I can do that. I think Ted Nugent is a total whack job. And a lot of shit he says is highly offensive. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate his music. I disagree completely with Clint Eastwood's politics and found his convention skit somewhat offensive. But he's one of my favorite directors. Dude makes absolutely fantastic movies. I like him.

You can't just 100% write off anything and everything from someone you disagree with or who offends you. And you can't automatically assume the worst about people. Which you seemed to do in this case when you jumped to conclusions about me simply because I interpreted a joke differently than someone else.

Pollsters can, and often do (especially when trying to make projections based on their believed electorate), filter through results and/or drop randomly selected samples if they don't fit the projection model.

The guys that are trying to really predict will absolutely tailor their sample to fit a projected voter pattern, otherwise it's just random chance.

I heard something yesterday that was interesting...and probably germaine to the 'conservative media lied to you' subject about polls that broke down not between democrat, republican and independent but rather polls between liberal, moderate and conservative. Post election that was the first time I had ever heard of such poll and it told the story exactly.

Conservatives clearly lost out to the moderate/liberal. I think that would have been a better way to evaluate the pre-election polls. Had I known of those polls pre-election I may not have waited an hour in line to vote since there was no point.

__________________
Anything you post on this BB can and will be used against you...

This is probably the most salient point. In order for Republicans to become electable they have to become a party willing to argue over how much government and government aid to give the demographics versus the democrats. Regardless, it's basically a pandering to taking more from the producers to the takers.

you have a good basic argument. A smaller more efficient government is better. Most will agree with that ideal.

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Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.